any news on this? I am also thinking about a project based on the VS1053. Because I am an absolute beginner, I wanted Arduino to be the base for my first experiments, but I would prefer to know if it works at all before I buy an Arduino Board.

This is a modified code I tried, taking care of your hints and adding comments, but I also don´t get it to work with an Arduino Mega. However, because I am new to Arduino and microcontroller programming, this does not neccessarily have to mean anything... .

I realize that my voltage conversion is a little bit off, and the resulting output is closer to 3.17v when I check it. Is this the problem? If I understand things correctly I shouldn't have to convert the (AVR side) input pins, since the 3.3v output from the vs1002 should be higher than needed to detect a high signal, right?

BTW, as far as I can tell when it come to this simple test vs1002 and vs1053b should be fairly similar, but I could be wrong.

I've also looked at superjazz tutorial (not allowed to post link yet) but also to no avail.

Anybody here that can shed any light on this, or can point to some other person successfully interfacing with any Arduino to one of these MP3 breakouts?

I am doing something very similar. I am trying to turn on the sine wave test then turn it off, repeating the process. The following code does turn the sine on/off but also acts erratically (clicks, pops, different pitches and changes in delay times). If someone could tell me what is missing or just fix my code, I would greatly appreciate it. My goal is to create the most simplified and straightforward code approach so I can learn more about the logic being employed and how the SPI bus works. I'm just interested in a very basic walk-through of turning the sine test on then off. I want to make it work properly but I don't want anything fancy. Thank you in advance for your help.

This code based on: supertechman.blogspot.com/2010/09/arduino-and-sparkfun-mp3-shield-test.html

Pin 32 of the VLSI chip (XTEST, near the GPIO0 pin) on the breakout board is floating and is NOT connected to IOVDD as the datasheet of the the VS1053 recommends You might solder that, but it is tricky to do.